Home › Blog › Page 1487

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

What wealthy folks are investing in saving our 750,000,000 acres of public trust lands? In housing for homeless? In cleaning up the plastic island in the Pacific larger than Alaska? In cleaning up the mercury from the oceans, the Great Lakes, the Chesapeake Bay, and the Caribbean Sea?  In cleaning up sewer and gray flush water? In getting rid of Africanized Bees? In finding solutions to the 20 million malnourished American kids who go to sleep hungry every night? In the 27,000 square mile Navajo Nation with 400,000 citizens that are 50% unemployed? In finding a cure for diabetes for 60% of the children on the 585 First American Nations?

What wealthy folks are investing in the rusting inner cities or the 23,000 rural communities at risk of extinction? In saving millions of homes in foreclosure? In Veterans Administration Hospitals? In our crumbling bridges and highways? In closing and protecting our borders? In soil restoration after prolonged drought? In 20,000,000 Americans who are unemployed or underemployed?

The fiscal cliff is an invention. (more…)

Tagged with: , , ,

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Last night we published our 2500th blog post.  My sincere thanks to all of our contributors and supporters, and to the many dozens of fine friends I’ve made along the way.   

I smile sadly when I hear about people rushing into retirement, and at my age (57) I’m surrounded by them.  I want to be doing this until I take my final breath on this planet. 

 

Tagged with: ,

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Fossil Fuels

As those of us who are concerned about global climate change turn our attention to the COP-18 meetings in Qatar, we note that the host of these talks is among dozens of countries that keep gas prices artificially low through subsidies that exceeded $500 billion globally last year.  According to the article:

Renewable energy worldwide received six times less support — an imbalance that is just starting to earn attention in the divisive negotiations on curbing the carbon emissions blamed for heating the planet.

“We need to stop funding the problem, and start funding the solution,” said Steve Kretzmann, of Oil Change International, an advocacy group for clean energy.

Right on, Steve.  It’s really just that simple. As long as the world keeps dumping huge sums of cash into making fossil fuels financially attractive, we’ll keep running 100 miles per hour into a global catastrophe.  Thanks for your efforts to shine a light onto this tragedy.  Keep up the good work.

 

Tagged with: , , ,

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Biofuels

Here’s an article that presents the subject of waste-to-biofuels in a very readable, high-level way.  In the U.S., we’re converting about 3% of our organic waste to some form of useful energy, as compared to 37% in Europe.  Of course, this points to the huge potential remaining here, if we are able to assemble the public-private partnerships that are required to collect and process the waste. 

Tagged with: ,

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

When I was still a kid, one of the movies I loved was Back to the Future. Yeah, and you can bet your dollar that one of my most favorite machines would be the time-travelling car that Marty McFly rode to get back into the past. Back then, everything that came from the said movie seemed “futuristic” and the energy that powered up the car’s time-travelling engine fascinated kids and adults alike. Unfortunately, that kind of energy capacitor has not yet been invented, but who knows? Perhaps a genius inventor may finally discover or make one.

Speaking of energy, I’ve chanced upon an article in the Internet that talks about the possibility of using human fat into energy. Are you kidding me? Human fat? (more…)

Tagged with:

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

In the recent past, the goal for many business school graduates was to pursue their MBA in order to find a more lucrative salary. Today, a simple MBA may not be enough. As the world goes green, business school grads find it more beneficial to concentrate on a defined degree once they head to graduate school. Here’s where a green MBA can take you:

1.Finance
Jobs in the financial sector are sought after by hundreds of business school graduates every year thanks to their high salaries. Because demand for these jobs is so high, it makes sense to stand out from the crowd. With a green MBA, you can find a job as an economic analyst for existing and new businesses who want to enhance their green status and reduce their negative impact on the environment. You may take part in corporate sustainability efforts, help to develop new technologies or even work on cost-analysis projects.
(more…)

Tagged with: ,

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

I’d like to introduce a new member of the team:

Sara Biddle writes grants for 2GreenEnergy clients in small business and agricultural production who may be looking for funding from government entities, utilities, or private foundations.  Sara’s background makes her a perfect fit for this position; she earned her Master’s in Environmental Law and Policy from the Vermont Law School, then began working in the solar industry, where she focused on residential sales, grant writing and some renewable policy work. Sara continues to work in solar, now in commercial sales.

Welcome, Sara!

 

Tagged with: , , , , ,

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Solar Thermal

Here’s an article that tells a story that’s playing itself out all over the world – this time, in Spain: Fiery drama and fierce tensions caused by tightening budgets for energy.

Nowhere more than Spain, deficits need to be cut.  Subsidies for renewables are on the chopping block.  The renewable energy people suggest tapping the fully paid-off and enormously profitable nuclear and hydro utilities. The giants refuse.  They want the subsidies for renewables pulled, and appear to have a new law in place that will make this happen, which would destroy the fledgling industry.  But clean energy is fighting back; in particular, the CSP (Concentrated Solar Power) investors claim the law is discriminatory.

It’s down to the wire.  Which way will this go?  Apparently, to International Court of Arbitration.

Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

Each week I look forward to receiving the “EV Insider” from EVWorld.com’s Bill Moore.  If you’re not already a subscriber, you may want to consider becoming one, as that status will provide you access to each edition as it’s published.  Now going into his 15th year (!), Bill has brought the news on the future of transportation, presented in a very pure and unbiased manner, to tens of millions of people all over the globe. 

Perhaps most important, Bill goes beyond the confines of electric transportation and delivers terrific insight on the larger issues.  For instance, in addition to beefy articles on e-bicycles in New York City and BMW’s i3, this week’s issue contains a wonderful treatment of carbon taxation, including blurbs that explain each major nation’s approach to the challenge.  Then there’s an article on the shrinking polar icecap, which is diminishing in terms of both area and thickness far faster than anyone had predicted.  All of this follows a report on Bill McKibben’s “Do The Math” nationwide, multicity tour, whose purpose is to heighten awareness of climate change and demand aggressive action from both the public and private sector, in particular, to block the development of the TransCanada XL pipeline.

I think you’ll be impressed.  I know I am. 

 

Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

Native Slovakian Robin Babicek writes on the 2GreenEnergy Facebook page on my post concerning the geothermal breakthrough coming out of homeland:  

As long as we’re on the subject of Slovakia, have you heard about project GreenWay?  I go away for 6 months and my little country turns into a cleantech leader. Ain’t that some (^*@$).

The Greenway site is in Slovakian, but if the Google Chrome translator is to be trusted, the project is essentially the same as Better Place, i.e., battery-swapping for electric vehicles.  As far as I can tell, this concept isn’t catching on well, even in Israel, arguably the region of the globe whose physical, economic, and political conditions militate most forcefully in its favor. 

In any case, I’m delighted to see Slovakia running in the direction of cleantech. 

 

 

Tagged with: , , , , ,